During the last few months I had the opportunity of experiencing some attacks aimed at me, but utilising my nationality/background as the axis-of-assault. Racism, as we know it.
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I was able to stop the initial reaction, familiar and natural to all, of a direct, brutal and physical assault – a standard, biological and violent response. Instead, I focused on analysing the underlying issues.
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It took me a while to understand the deep, deeeeeep, issues. My negative reaction was not based on the (theoretically) fundamental assumption that “I = my nationality”. Instead, I understood that the attack on me:
– Focused on what I was doing at the time (e.g. was a negative reaction to my efficiency/innovativeness);
– Used my nationality as a focal point for optimising critique of my (not nationality but) efficiency/innovativeness;
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My personal reactions were even more mixed – although the initial, biological reaction was enacted through the “nationality” perspective, I took some time to understand the true reality – bypassing my passport, I understood that the attack was on what I represented (modernity, progress, international rationality, global standards, quality).
Strangely, it was even more insulting, since: everything I was and did was perceived as the threat to an old/ancient/communist culture of laziness/do-nothingness, while my nationality was simply a TOOL of voicing such opposition.
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So, my passport wasn’t important, but it helped to “prove” how useless I was as a challenger to “their” (pathetic, hopeless, ancient) reality. If I’d have been an alien, my “bluishness” or “brownness” or “double-headedness” would have been used. Hopeless losers have got no other vocabulary… Racism is the recourse of most loosers and idiots.